nicemenu blogosphere

Blog

Want to win a VIP experience to the last home game of the regular season? It's easy- enter the #QView contest presented by 7Up by visiting your local Lucky store and snapping a photo with Q standee! Tweet the photo and make sure to tag @sjearthquakes and #QView. A randomly selected winner will receive 4 premier midfield seats to the match against Vancouver Whitecaps FC on October 18, hospitality, and VIP parking.

Ever since Wondo has returned from the World Cup, he has been on fire. He not only has scored important goals but he's making MLS history.

Chris Wondolowski became the third player in MLS to score at least 10 goals in five consecutive seasons with his strike against the Philadelphia Union on Sunday. Wondolowski joined Juan Pablo Angel (2007-11 with NY, LA and CHV) and Carlos Ruiz (2002-06 with LA) as the only players to achieve this. Wondolowski burst onto the scene with 18 goals to win the Budweiser Golden Boot in 2010. He followed that performance up with 16 in 2011, tying Dwayne De Rosario for the league lead. The Danville native took his second Budweiser Golden Boot in 2012, tying the MLS record for goals in a single season with 27 and then posted 11 in 2013. He has a team-leading 10 goals in 17 games so far this season for San Jose.

On top of that, Wondo is one of the hottest players in MLS since returning from the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. Since his first appearance after United States Men’s National Team duty, Wondolowski has five goals and three assists in eight games. He has also scored in back-to-back games for San Jose, recording the game-tying goal against Seattle in a 1-1 draw on Aug. 20 and tallying in a 4-2 loss against Philadelphia on Sunday.

RSL better watch out for Wondo on Saturday as well. The star striker has been red hot against Real Salt Lake with six goals in his last seven games against the Western Conference contenders. He scored his first career goal against RSL on April 21, 2012 and went on to score four more over his next two games, including a hat trick on July 14, 2012. Wondolowski also recorded the opening salvo in a 3-3 affair against RSL on March 15, 2014. Tickets are still available here.

Jordan Stewart was challenged to participate in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge by his friend Michelle Rozzen. Her father passed away from ALS and reached out to Stewart to spread the awareness. Stewart gladly accepted and thinks it is important for professional athletes to create awareness for this disease. Stewart asked for the help of his teammates Tommy Thompson, JJ Koval, Shaun Francis, Chris Wondolowski, Jean-Baptiste Pierazzi, and Billy Knutsen. They all participated in the challenge and will also be making a donation for ALS.

On Wednesday August 20, Casino M8trix will host a viewing party for the Quakes match against Seattle Sounders FC. All ages are welcome and the event will start at 6 p.m. at 1887 Matrix Blvd, San Jose. Food and drink specials will be available courtesy of Casino M8trix.

Plus, Quakes defender Clarence Goodson will be in attendance to cheer the guys on. Go meet Clarence and watch the match with fellow Quakes fans at the hot new Casino M8trix!

Any Earthquakes player who scores against the LA Galaxy earns a special place in the hearts of San Jose faithful.

Score against the Galaxy in your debut to help earn a crucial road point – well, that’s another level.

Matias Perez Garcia started and played 83 minutes in San Jose’s 2-2 draw against the Galaxy on Friday. About a half hour in, he hammered a nifty back-heel pass from Chris Wondolowski for his first career MLS goal.

That goal made Perez Garcia the ninth player in Earthquakes history to score in his club debut and the fourth to do it against the Galaxy. At 31 minutes, it was also the fifth-fastest goal in a club debut for San Jose (Brian Ching holds the record at 59 seconds).

With our first #MilesToEpicenter contest complete, we would like to congratulate Stuart Berman for earning the most Facebook likes! He has won a VIP trip for four to an Earthquakes away match, including airfaire and hotel.

The Quakes are now going global! From San Jose to Berekley to Mexico to London, we're making sure every one knows their distance to the new state-of-the-art Epicenter, opening March 2015.

Starting on Wednesday August 13, all you have to do is go to one of our billboards, snap a photo and share on social using #MilesToEpicenter for a chance to win season tickets. Click here for more information.

If yes, keep an eye out for Friday's special edition of the Silicon Valley Business Journal: Business of Sports. And, in the meantime, we have a preview of the cover below as well as a brief Q&A with Lauren Hepler, an economic development reporter with SVBJ.

Lauren dropped by Earthquakes practice a couple weeks ago to check out the adidas miCoach system and its use within the soccer-scape. Here's what she had to say about the Business of Sports edition, technology in soccer and new stadium innovation:

SJEarthquakes.com: What do readers have to look forward to in the Business of Sports special edition?Lauren Hepler (SVBJ): We really covered the whole gamut when it comes to Silicon Valley sports. The cover story focuses on wearable technology being used by pro sports teams to track player performance, which gets really interesting when it comes to how that data could maybe one day be used for things like injury prevention, salary negotiations or TV broadcasts. Other articles look at the technology powering smartphones at Levi’s Stadium, fantasy sports betting, startups offering sports coaching through videoconferencing and a how Stanford football alums have transitioned into the Silicon Valley business world. There’s tons more to come tomorrow.

SJEQ: Chris Wondolowski made the cover, which means there must be some soccer in this edition. What areas of the sport did you look at?LH: Soccer really pervades the issue, from an up-close look at how the Quakes use wearable sensors to a Q&A with the architect designing the team’s new San Jose stadium. I thought it was interesting that one of my sources in the tech world corrected me when I asked about the big four sports leagues — NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL — and said that for his company it’s now about the big five, including Major League Soccer. It’s a potentially lucrative market that a lot of businesses are circling right now and sort of trying to make sense of where the financial opportunities are.

SJEQ: Many would say that soccer is a sport that's unquantifiable. What's your take on the use of big data in the sport?LH: That’s a fascinating area, especially when it comes to wearable sensors. When you think about biometric data from an athlete — how far they’re running in a game or how long their heart rate is elevated in practice, for instance — the people I interviewed stressed that it’s all about context. Raw numbers don’t necessarily do you much good, especially in a real game. You have to consider things like individual athlete’s medical histories, how a player should function within a given formation or how a player’s strategy might shift if he or she is looking to exploit a particular weakness on an opposing team.

SJEQ: If you had to make one bold prediction about the use of technology in soccer, what would it be?LH: Data-driven soccer is already here, from scouting software that allows teams to check out young players around the world to wearable sensors that capture physical data from training sessions. The next frontier is how this all moves from the front office or the training facility to an actual game. My guess is that you’ll see wearable technology in MLS games within the next few years — but the big question is how players’ unions help hammer out the specifics, like what data is considered private medical information or whether biometric data can be used in salary negotiations.

SJEQ: What's the coolest innovation you've seen in a new stadium project?LH: There’s a lot going on with super advanced cameras and other sensors in sports venues. I hear a lot of it started in NASCAR, but it’s things like using sensors strategically positioned around a stadium or a race track to clock how fast or how far a player or a car is traveling. I understand that they used that sort of technology at the World Cup to show how much ground individual players covered, versus the average distance covered by the whole team. Moving forward, it will be interesting to see how those technologies designed to increase entertainment value overlap with the data being collected by teams themselves, since most of the latter is kept private by teams or leagues right now.

In a partnership with BMW, the Quakes are holding a test drive with player Shea Salinas. On August 15, Salinas will be at Peter Pan BMW in San Mateo from 6:30-8:00 p.m.

At this apperance, fans will can come and meet the players, take pictures and get autographs. Additonally, fans who test drive a vehicle will receive two free tickets to the match against Real Salt Lake on August 30.